


there's something moving underground.

by VacuumTan



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Horror, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Second Person, Psychological Horror, Slow Build, baby's first attempt at writing horror, bear with me on this one, i'll update the tags as i release chapters as to not ruin the suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:41:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VacuumTan/pseuds/VacuumTan
Summary: Your name is Edelgard. You turned eighteen this summer, you just enrolled at Garreg Mach University, and something isn't quite right, but that might just be the stress talking.-in which there's something moving underground.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	1. and all the pretty little warhorses

**Author's Note:**

> hiya! just a quick heads-up about **content warnings!**
> 
> i intend for this to become more and more uncomfortable/unsettling over time. so if you struggle with **anxiety or similar disorders** , i would recommend you read this at your own discretion.
> 
> that being said, i will provide according cws before every individual chapter. thanks so much for reading! <3

There’s something moving underground.

It creaks like something ancient, like the pillars of the world slowly giving out.

It doesn’t run smoothly. It shakes the walls, and they come closer and closer each day. Eventually, they might just cave in on you.

You can’t pinpoint the exact feeling, can’t describe it when someone asks.

Perhaps, you are simply tired.

* * *

Your name is Edelgard. You just turned eighteen this summer, and you intend to major in political science. To that end, you enrolled at Garreg Mach University, the largest and most prestigious university in all of Fódlan.

You are an only child, technically. You have a stepbrother with whom you aren’t close. You have a best friend, with whom you are as close as kin.

Both of them are also at Garreg Mach, and neither by coincidence, you feel.

There is a certain draw to places where history got writ, you suppose. Garreg Mach, with its central position in the continent, had been the spiritual sanctuary of a Fódlan faith long since lost over time, and a military stronghold once that faith had failed the people.

The masonry is ancient where the original buildings are left intact, and motley where newer, modern architectural styles clash.

“The roof of the cathedral was restored around the year 1200,” says the soft-voiced, soft-smiled senior giving your group the campus tour. Her nametag says _Mercie_ , with a little heart dotting the i, and she wears a floral skirt with hiking boots underneath.

Some of your fellow freshmen stare at the ceiling in awe. You find your eyes drawn to the tall lancet window at the very front of the cathedral instead, and the sanctum before it, fenced off with slim golden bars.

If the roof had caved, surely anything inside must have gotten buried beneath the debris. You can all but feel the phantom sensation of splintered, powdery freestone against your palms. It feels as if you’d dug it all back up yourself, but when you look at your hands, not even a grain of sand is stuck under your fingernails.

_Mercie_ eventually herds your group outside again, offering little tidbits of information about the campus all the while. “There are said to be parts of the former monastery that no one remembers the location of,” she says, still smiling.

A boy in front of you raises his hand. “And how do you know they exist, then?” he asks, drawling.

It’s a fair question. _Mercie_ tilts her head, making her long ponytail swish to the side. “Well, there must be records, I guess?” she offers, thick brows drawn together in thought. “But if there were a map, we would know where those places are, wouldn’t we?”

She laughs sheepishly, and the boy huffs. “Wouldn’t they show up in satellite pictures?”

“Oh, no,” _Mercie_ replies, “they are said to be underground. I’m sure you can read up on it if it interests you!”

“Underground?”

_Mercie_ directs her unfaltering smile towards you. “It sounds strange, doesn’t it?” she says. “Almost like a ghost story.”

* * *

Hubert meets up with you for coffee. Your little group of freshmen scattered after lunch, and Hubert’s classes only really start next week.

You have all the time in the world.

“And did you enjoy the tour?” he asks, flatly. The coffee in his mug looks more like liquid tar.

You’ve known Hubert essentially all your life, and never had he been particularly social, or a big fan of the sun. He must have hated it, three years ago. You wonder if he’d had his own version of _Mercie_ with a heart dotting the i.

“It was fine,” you tell him, and he seems dissatisfied by your answer. Not that he’d express it. Instead, he pensively takes an exaggeratedly long sip. “ _Really_.”

Another long sip. “That’s good.”

You stare at your hands in thought. Hubert sets his mug down, yet doesn’t speak. There’s something on your mind, you feel. Something you wish to express to Hubert. But you can’t put your finger on what it is. Perhaps you just forgot.

“The roommate I got assigned,” you say instead, “won’t come back before the weekend, apparently.”

“That’s cutting it close,” Hubert replies. His coffee, half drunk, is a calm, unmoving abyss against white ceramic. He cracks his neck. “Here’s to hoping they aren’t irresponsible. Or otherwise unpleasant, for that matter.”

You’d like to say that you would prefer to room with him if administration permitted it, but that would be a lie. In truth, and though you love him dearly, Hubert is a very particular person. He prefers to keep to himself, barely telling _you_ anything, and yet has no qualms about getting up in everyone else’s business.

He’s the type you’d readily entrust with your life, but definitely not your diary.

“I’m sure it will be fine, Hubert,” you say and drink some of your own coffee. It’s a light, creamy brown, and as sweet as four sugar packets. “Besides, learning to accommodate others and to compromise is a skill that can come in handy in life.”

He grumbles something in reply and crosses his absurdly long legs. You bite your lip to keep yourself from laughing.

The coffee place around you is not particularly lively, perhaps because not too many students have to be on campus yet. It’s pleasantly slow and quiet, and the afternoon sun is warm where it shines through the windows.

The black abyss of Hubert’s drink still stands on the table between you. The surface ripples—once, twice—like a trick of the light.

* * *

_All the pretty little warhorses rise from their ghostly graves at night_ , Mercie says, _and they haunt Garreg Mach in a wild battue until their hollow hunting grounds give way_.


	2. and all your sweet little dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **special content warnings for this chapter:** none! you're good to go!

When you stare at your ceiling at night, you can hear something crawl inside it. (It crawls within the walls, too.)

It’s a quiet noise that only sounds thunderous in the complete silence of the night.

You haven’t slept soundly in a while.

* * *

Your family situation is as follows:

When you were young, your old, ever weak and sickly father died. You and your mother were left behind, so her brother—your uncle—took the two of you in for a while.

Your mother grieved for all of a year before she got back on her feet. She started seeing someone else two years after your father’s passing, and by the time three years had gone by, she was engaged.

And it had been fine at first. Her fiancé was a nice man. He had a son your age, who was also _nice_ —soft, sweet Dimitri, who had no spine to speak of. Your mother had taken a shine to the two of them, but she had always stayed as warm and loving with you as before.

Eventually, they got married. Nothing changed.

* * *

You haven’t called home since you got to university, though. You know that Dimitri has been keeping your parents up to date. There’s no real point in telling them the same things twice.

“They’d probably love to hear how you’re doing firsthand, El,” Dimitri says, still. He always sits with his shoulders curled inwards when talking to you. It makes him look like an animal deferring to a stronger opponent, and it’s irritating.

You take a bite out of the sandwich he paid for. “Just tell them I’m fine next time you talk to them, then.”

He huffs some vague semblance of a laugh. “I can do that,” he says, smiling wryly.

“Great,” you reply. The notifications on your phone have been dreadfully silent since you sat down with Dimitri for an afternoon snack in a little café. You sigh. “How have _you_ been, anyways?”

He shrugs one of his curled-in shoulders. “I’m as good as ever,” he says, “although I haven’t been sleeping well.”

There _are_ fairly prominent dark circles under his eyes, now that he mentions it. He might even be a tad paler than usual. It’s honestly a bit concerning. “How come?”

“It probably sounds silly to you, but... I’ve been having nightmares lately.” Dimitri idly breaks a piece off his bagel. He doesn’t eat it. “But I suppose it’s just the unfamiliar environment getting to me. Please, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s just... I don’t recall you ever struggling with nightmares,” you say. “Do you remember what they’re about?”

He stares at his food before breaking another chunk off. “I don’t.” He sighs before shoving one of the bagel-pieces into his mouth. “I think I remember them right after I wake up, but... as soon as I think _that_ , it’s all gone.”

You purse your lips and watch Dimitri shift about in his seat. It seems almost ridiculous, for someone your age to get nightmares the second they leave their parents’ house. But, you suppose, your stepbrother is a bit softer than most other people. If not sleeping at mommy’s bosom is enough to leave him sleep deprived, that’s his own problem.

“Well,” you say, and cough into your fist. “As you said, it will most likely sort itself out once you’re properly settled in.”

Dimitri perks up at your inelegant offer to change the topic. His shoulders uncurl, just a tad. “Right,” he agrees. He toys, yet again, with his food. “Speaking of settling in, has your roommate shown up yet?”

“No,” you say, because it’s still only Thursday afternoon, “they haven’t.”

* * *

Your family situation is as follows:

When you were young, your old, ever weak and sickly father died. You and your mother were left behind, so her brother—your uncle—took the two of you in for a while.

Your mother grieved for all of a year before she got back on her feet. She started seeing someone else two years after your father’s passing, and by the time three years had gone by, she was engaged.

And it had been fine at first. Her fiancé was a nice man. He had a son your age, who was also nice—soft, sweet Dimitri, who had no spine to speak of. Your mother had taken a shine to the two of them, but she had always stayed as warm and loving with you as before.

Eventually, they got married. Nothing changed.

Except, that’s a lie, of course.

Over time, your mother grew more and more distant. She still smiled the way she always did, still talked to you and your new family in the same dulcet tone of voice, but _something_ had become strange about her.

She would sit in silence for hours on end, embroidering bizarre patterns and scenes onto handkerchiefs and rags. They were oddly arranged, haphazardly colourful and seemed entirely fantastical—you couldn’t make sense of a single design she had stitched together. You never asked her about it either.

You blamed her behaviour on grief; perhaps even a sense of guilt about remarrying. It was the most obvious explanation, and you decided to give her all the space she needed when she got like that.

She needed a lot of space.

* * *

The walls in your dorm room are mostly clean, save for a small but noticeable stain right above your bed. It’s perhaps two centimetres in diameter, and it looks greasy.

You highly suspect that whoever lived here before had had the tendency to lean their head against the wall in exactly that spot. Perhaps you should paint over it, or at least hang something in front of it.

It’s miniscule, but it makes you feel like you have no control over your own living space.

Meanwhile, your still elusive roommate’s side does not have any ugly grease stains. There’s not much of anything on their side, actually. Which seems odd, considering how they are, as far as you know, a sophomore. Only a table lamp, a set of bright pink sheets, and a box crammed beneath their bed has been left there over break.

Granted, you haven’t gone through their dresser, but you’d prefer not to start your relationship with your roommate with a breach of privacy. You’re not Hubert, after all.

But regardless, when you’re left all alone in your halfway barren dorm room, your eyes always travel back to the stain above your bed. It’s a silly thing to obsess over. You’ll go through your belongings later—there should be a calendar somewhere.

* * *

If only you listened a bit more carefully, surely you’d hear it crawl under the flooring, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so hard to write, oof :(
> 
> i didn't factor in that, in order to get to the middle ( _aka where all the stuff i want to write is_ ), i'd have to write a beginning. who would have thought!


	3. and a rainy day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **special content warnings for this chapter:** mentions of drowning and death by drowning; possibly mentions of freezing;

It’s getting closer every day.

It clicks and clinks like machinery, some days.

Then, some other days, you can all but feel its pulse.

* * *

There is very little you are afraid of, generally speaking. You are scared of the ocean, for one. You never learned how to swim, so it only makes sense—falling into the sea would be your death sentence.

But it’s also, on a more global level, terrifying because of how _unknowable_ it is. You don’t do well with uncertainty, admittedly, so maybe that’s a contributing factor, too, but all that hasn’t been explored about the ocean—animals and places and who knows what else there is—makes your skin crawl.

It’s a dark, deadly abyss that swallows all light and bears down on bodies until they are eventually crushed by the weight of the water. A luckier man might get swallowed by whatever abomination lurks in the depths before then. And doesn’t that sound like such a merciful death in comparison?

You hate thinking about the ocean.

* * *

Every morning, you make sure to brush out your hair meticulously. You’ve been taking good care of it since you were a little girl, and you are loath to break the habit now.

It almost reaches down to your waist, so using proper shampoo and conditioner on it is a must. Every three months, you get the tips trimmed. Sometimes, you waste your money on one of those hair-masks, just to feel fancy.

Your hairdresser back home would always compliment the feel of it.

They were also, to a lesser extent, quite enamoured with its colour. _Like rye_ , they would say, dreamily. Getting complimented on that, though, wasn’t nearly as satisfying as having them fawn over its smoothness. You’ve never really been happy, getting praised for things you had no bearing on.

All in all, however, you take as much pride in how well-kept your hair is as you take the time to make sure it stays that way.

Your roommate—having returned yesterday, with only a small suitcase to her name—is still asleep as you sit at your desk, combing out the night’s knots and tangles with your favourite hairbrush. The light streaming in through the cracks in the blinds is still dim.

You enjoy slow, quiet mornings like this. They allow you to gather your thoughts and to prepare for the day ahead. It’s an almost meditative state, and your skin crawls with a vague sense of satisfaction. Soon, you’ll get up and have a light breakfast.

Your first lecture—the first university lecture of your life—starts in a bit more than one hour. It’s circled on the calendar above your bed and it feels like an important step towards maturity. You couldn’t be more eager to finally take it. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but you practically vibrate with excitement.

For a moment, it feels like the world vibrates right along.

* * *

Later, as you are on the way back to your dorm, it starts raining. Garreg Mach’s campus is large—so much so that finding somewhere to wait out the rain is much smarter than making a run for it.

You end up inside the old reception hall—a massive thing, with ceilings so tall, you can’t make out the brickwork. It has been around since Garreg Mach’s days as a monastery, _Mercie_ with a heart dotting the i had said. It’s not hard to believe: the reception hall is built sturdily, like a medieval fortress. For it to withstand the test of time is almost unsurprising.

The huge, historic gates are always open; a glass construction inside them, complete with electric sliding doors, functions as a doorway now. You find yourself staring at the grey skies outside, and at the raindrops sliding down the glass.

It’s cold here; you can’t help but shiver. The too-thick walls of the hall entrap the chill within them entirely too well.

And it’s quiet. There’s barely any students occupying the benches encircling ancient pillars. Those who are there silently type away on their phones or laptops, listening to music as if to drown out the deafening noise of the rain.

You eventually sit down as well, closing your eyes as the cold eats away at you. The rainfall comes like a pulse, and like ants crawling the earth, and static. You breathe, and your lungs aren’t made of inches-thick freestone, and the ice of the air doesn’t stay.

Perhaps you drift off, for a while. You can’t really recall.

* * *

And you can hear it echo there, can’t you?

It moves beneath you, as you sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not dead! yay!!! nah, but this is primarily a warm-up and brain-stim fic, and i made headway on a bigger project these past few days (stay tuned lol), so this one slowed down. plus, you know... exam prep and all that.
> 
> regardless, though! thanks so much for letting me know you enjoy this on the last chap! <3


	4. and all that ever was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **special content warnings for this chapter:** mentions of blood;

How long has it been there, anyways?

It feels like it’s always crunched, and clinked, and ground, and snapped, and creaked, and screeched, and—

Has it been a thousand years? You can’t recall.

How old were you again?

* * *

There’s a lot to be learned from history. That much is a fact. Whatever wars were fought by your forefathers, whatever ideologies ended up crushed and condemned by the generations following their downfall—it’s all a monument to human folly. Only with enough distance, you believe, can you truly judge the rights and wrongs of history and learn from them. Without critical reflection, you will have learned nothing at all.

Hubert had shared the thought, once, that you cannot ever truly form an informed judgement even then. History is written by the victors, he had argued, and accounts of those who weren’t among them are far and few in-between.

You wouldn’t even say that he is _wrong_. But in retrospect, even the victors’ side can occasionally be undeniably immoral. It’s a subjective process, too.

You have to contextualise, be in touch with your own morals and opinions, and then draw a conclusion—that’s what it boils down to. It really isn’t that hard. And yet, somehow, this one guy in your History of Fódlan seminar has been getting on your professor’s case about the War of Unification for five minutes, with opinions on it that have no basis in _anything_.

It’s the first lecture of the year, and he seems very sure of himself. It’s almost impressive.

“—but I simply have never read contemporary sources that would imply that the common folk were unhappy with the nobility, or the system as a whole, for that matter.”

It seems almost ridiculous. Anyone with only a little bit of historical knowledge could refer him to accounts of incest among noble houses to keep their bloodlines pure, and an insane obsession with genealogy in general. Even in high school, you learned that the nobles at the time had trouble feeding their people if their lands were just a tad too infertile and that the unification of the continent had only benefitted them in the long run.

This is laughable. “Are you done?” you ask the boy. He snaps around to look at you. He’s halfway out of his seat—two seats to the left in the row before yours. His eyes widen. He parts his lips as if to retort, and you raise a brow.

“I...” he begins, then snaps his previously overactive mouth shut. He goes red in the cheeks—much redder than his hair—and slowly sinks back into his chair.

The professor looks mildly annoyed but goes on with the _syllabus_ he had been discussing. It’s nothing you haven’t gone over on your own before, so you idly stare holes into the back of the opinionated boy’s perfectly coiffed head. The tips of his ears are still burning. You wonder what he’s so ashamed of. After all, he had seemed so confident before. Had he gotten carried away? Was that really something that flustered him that much?

You’re not looking forward to hearing more from him, in any case.

There’s a girl in the seat next to you who has been grinding her teeth for a few minutes now. It’s insanely loud; you can hear it from half a metre away. It makes you clench your own jaw.

The professor says something about the Leicester trade agreements of 1733. Two seats to the left, in the row before you, a certain boy sulkily writes at the margins of his notebook. He exhales bodily, then throws a glance over his shoulder.

Your eyes meet, but it’s not startling. Even the boy only gives you a sheepish smile. It’s a startlingly pretty expression, and you grind your teeth.

* * *

Fódlan’s soil is rusty with all the blood that saturates it.

The continent has a history of war and carnage, of freedom bought at the price of countless lives, and then lost at the cost of so many more. For millennia it has been a constant tug-of-war over territory, ideology, resources and what have you.

In that way, history is depressing. It’s a cruel teacher, because it writes its lessons in blood long since gone dry.

Adrestia rose following a saint lost to history, and then it bled for her. It bled for Dagda, and it bled for Brigid, and then its own people, over and over. And they bled for it, too. And Almyra bled, and the northern tribes of yore bled, and everyone has always, always been bleeding.

There’s no blood anymore, these days. Fódlan has been peaceful for over a hundred years, and war seems like an ancient monument to human folly. It breathes down your neck, because you’ve never known suffering that way, have you? You wouldn’t be able to fight, would you?

* * *

“Hello!” says the boy; the red-haired one, with all the opinions. He falls into step with you too easily, and smiles too brightly as you leave the seminar room. “I must apologise if I bothered you, earlier. I sometimes get caught up in my explanations when I am trying to make a point.”

“You don’t have to make a point when the professor is going over the syllabus,” you reply. The boy lets out some kind of noise. Perhaps it’s a bit mortified. You roll your eyes. “Either way, you don’t have to apologise to me.”

“But you seemed annoyed, so I would really prefer to clear the air.” He looks hopeful, and just a bit red in the cheeks. Something grinds, and you feel like your teeth may snap. “Are you headed for the cafeteria for lunch now?”

You wish you could say that you aren’t, but sadly, that is exactly where you are going. You wish you could say that you were already meeting up with friends, but the truth is that you haven’t really gotten particularly close to anyone yet. “I am,” you say, and you really wish you didn’t have to.

“Would it be alright if I joined you, then?” the boy asks. “I am Ferdinand, by the way. I believe I forgot to introduce myself before.”

“Edelgard,” you offer. Ferdinand smiles, and his cheeks dimple. How irritating. “And if you promise to keep your ill-informed opinions on history to yourself, I suppose I won’t mind eating with you.”

“Ill-informed?” he gasps, appalled, and you almost laugh.

* * *

Your dorm room is empty when you return for the day.

There’s clothes, papers, and an assortment of other odds and ends strewn all over your roommate’s side—her bed, the floor, her desk—but she managed to keep most of it contained to her own space. You don’t mind. She’s still unpacking, after all.

Perhaps she is in the bathroom. You tiptoe your way over to the door on your roommate’s side and give it a knock. “Monica?” you ask, to no reply. She must be out then.

You still push down the handle, and peek into the bathroom. It’s predictably empty. Frankly, you don’t know what you expected.

You close the door behind you and walk back over to your bed, still careful not to step on anything. You take your phone out of your pocket and move to plug in the charger by the headboard when you notice that your newly hung calendar has fallen off the wall. Monica must have _thrown_ one of her messy, messy belongings at it or something.

You sigh and pick the calendar up. This month’s sheet now has a prominent dog ear at the bottom. You kneel on your bed to hang it back up when you notice that, not only is the stain on your wall still as noticeable as always, but now, it also has a crack running through it. The nail must have gotten jostled along with the calendar, and then the plaster decided to crack right along.

“Thank you, Monica,” you mutter to yourself. You hang your stupid calendar, grab your phone, plug the charger into it, and proceed to bury your face in your pillow.

* * *

You don’t know why, but you end up dreaming about Ferdinand.

You can’t remember much about it, beyond that. He had smiled with his stupid dimples, and you had grown irritated. His lips had moved, and you’d heard him, and, despite yourself, ended up laughing.

It was a warm place, full of light and laughter, and your heart had felt so, so heavy.

* * *

_No one is made for war_ , Ferdinand says and picks the cheese off his bake, _but somehow, I feel like peace makes us develop this perverse fascination with it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ferdie joins the chat!   
> sorry if updates are slowing, exams are drawing closer!


	5. and the birds and the bees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **special content warnings for this chapter:** earthquakes; body horror and blood (starts at "yet another fun story" right at the end;

It grinds.

Your teeth may splinter, if you keep this up.

* * *

Here’s a fun story:

When you were fifteen, and Hubert was seventeen and still ravaged by acne, you sat him down in your red-and-black bedroom, with all the teen idol posters ripped from magazines watching him like the world’s prettiest jury.

You sat in your desk chair, while Hubert arranged his absurdly long limbs at the edge of your bed. “There has to be someone you like,” you had said, already decided. “Who is it?”

He hadn’t even coloured; Hubert never was a blusher. Instead, he had met your gaze head-on, unafraid and unwavering, and said, “You, of course.”

And in that moment, the admission had seemed so very ridiculous to you that you burst out laughing.

He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he had smiled right along, and eventually, you weren’t even sure if it hadn’t been a joke to begin with. But of course, you loved Hubert—and you still love him, naturally—and you didn’t want him to feel like that wasn’t the truth.

“Thank you, Hubert,” you had said, eventually, when you were done laughing. And then, many weeks later—perhaps even months—you were lying next to him on the floor of his childhood bedroom, where memories were packed up in boxes, and university was calling his name, and you continued the conversation with, “I wish I could go with you.”

And Hubert had been the one to laugh then, a dark and soft little noise. “Thank you,” he had said, or echoed, and you wonder why you thought this was funny at all.

* * *

You’re lying flat-out on the floor now, too, with your shoulder blades and your tailbone uncomfortably bearing the brunt of your weight. Hubert sits in your desk chair, one gangly leg slung over the other, and types away on his phone.

“I wasn’t going to ask,” he says without looking up, “but what are you doing?”

You frown. “Someone told me lying flat on your back on the ground for a few minutes helps relieve tension,” you reply. And, well—no one told you per se, because you looked up easy ways to prevent back pains, and there’s nothing you aren’t willing to try out.

Hubert just hums, which is his noncommittal way of calling bullshit (since he’d probably never verbally do that), and keeps on typing.

The ceiling above you has several stains on it. They’re different from the one above your bed; they look like the browned aquarelles of a burst pipe. You’ve never taken the time to look at your ceiling in daylight. Here’s to hoping this old water damage doesn’t compromise the structural integrity of the dorm.

Your hands, resting limply by your sides, suddenly start trembling.

Or, no. They aren’t trembling at all, actually. All they do is clatter against the floor. “Hubert,” you breathe. “Hubert, I think the ground is shaking.”

He actually puts his phone down at that. “The ground?” he asks, before planting one of his socked feet firmly down, silently waiting. You press your palms flat against the linoleum and feel for the tremors. They are light, but they are undeniably there, rattling the space between your shoulders.

You roll onto your side to press your ear and cheek against the floor. The tremors haven’t passed yet; and you don’t know what you expected, but the silence in your ear seems almost surprising.

Hubert clears his throat. “It is... probably a very minor earthquake,” he says. “You wouldn’t even have noticed, had you not been lying on the floor. So I would say it’s nothing to worry about.”

You rise up to kneel on the floor. “Curious,” you say. “I didn’t know the area even got any earthquakes at all.”

“There is, of course, the ever-present threat of the earth caving in below us,” Hubert jokes, and because that’s as much humour as you ever get out of him, you laugh.

* * *

Here’s another fun story:

Hubert had this fascination with _bees_ , of all things, when he was little.

He had begged his father to keep some when he was around ten. They bought two colonies and kept the little boxes—one painted a quaint blue, the other a hideous sang-de-boeuf—in their sad excuse for a backyard.

You don’t have many memories of Hubert’s father, and Hubert is adamant it should stay that way, with how much he resents him, but you do remember with clarity how he would take care of the bees. He never wore any protective gear apart from some gloves, and tended to the bees with a detached sort of love.

Hubert admired them—the bees. “They live to serve their queen and their colony,” he would say, “and they work their whole lives, just to keep her safe and happy.”

“What if she dies?” you had asked him.

He had smiled, strange and dry. “They raise a new one as fast as they can.”

This odd love for fickle hive insects was eventually replaced with a fascination for chemistry, and biology, and politics and everything else that seemed mature to Hubert at the time. He’d always hated honey, anyways.

After two years, both colonies absconded within weeks from one another. The blue and red boxes were left behind, with not a single bee in sight. You always assumed Hubert had been sad, but he’d also wordlessly helped his father break down the boxes, and then went back inside to let you pore over his middle school textbooks that had seemed so cool to you at the time, his expression unreadable as always.

* * *

“He sounds like a dour person,” says Ferdinand, who had fallen into the seat next to you as though you’d invited him to. “Ah, that is of course not to say that—I mean, I am certain he has many good qualities!”

You almost want to laugh at how flustered Ferdinand is. Instead, you idly align your pens with the edges of your notebook. “He can be difficult,” you say. “But I wouldn’t trade him for anyone in the world.”

Ferdinand smiles at that, big and dopey. “How nice,” he says.

Surprisingly, he falls silent after that. It gives you room to think, and suddenly, you are reminded of something. “Did you notice that earthquake two days ago?” you ask.

“Earthquake?” Ferdinand parrots. You nod, and he tilts his head as if to show you that he’s thinking hard. “Not that I would remember. I must admit that I did not even know they occurred around these parts.”

“I thought so too, but it was only very minor. I swear, the ground was trembling below my hands. Hubert felt it, too.”

“I do not doubt you, Edelgard,” he says, placating. “Perhaps I will catch the next one.”

He smiles, and it makes your lips curl upwards in turn, just a bit. It seems to please Ferdinand greatly. “Well, today’s lecture is about the first Fódlan-Dagdan War. Do you think you can keep your opinions to yourself on that one?”

Ferdinand goes redder than his hair and coughs. “Well!” he says, and leaves it at that.

When you reach for a pen, you find every last one of them dislodged.

* * *

Yet another fun story:

You dreamt, once, that you had been turned inside out, just like a t-shirt. Naturally, they cut you open before that. You don’t have holes that big in you, silly!

So they cut open your legs, and they cut open your arms. They left your head on, though, and you wondered how they were going to turn you inside out at all, if they left your head on. But they managed—their fingers clawed inside the cuts, and you could feel them dig around between muscle and sinew and skin. Your meat had spilled from the cuts, and they had shoved it right back inside. You thought them very considerate for it. After all, you needed your meat inside.

So they picked you apart, and stitched your skin back together with pretty pink thread, like a ribbon around a present. And they shoved it all back in—all your hurt and pain and blood and meat—and they called you pretty.

And when you’d looked at yourself in the mirror, and you had been so terribly disfigured, all red and hideous on the outside, you had rammed your thumbs into your eye-sockets until your eyeballs popped, and turned your face inside out, and finally, you were pretty again.

* * *

_A single intruder_ , Hubert had said, younger and softer, _and the entire hive makes sure it doesn’t make it out alive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> exam prep is kicking my ass and i decided to procrastinate by writing thissssss
> 
> i'm studying html by glancing at the formatting on here, what do you mean this isn't me studying for IT on tuesday in a hands-on way

**Author's Note:**

> this is very experimental for me, so i'd really love some feedback if you have the time! and feel free to come chat me up on my [designated writing tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/allie-writes) anytime!


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